


sand into glass

by glorious_clio



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Family, Gen, Tatooine (Star Wars), disabilities in star wars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-19
Updated: 2019-02-19
Packaged: 2019-10-31 14:10:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17851013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glorious_clio/pseuds/glorious_clio
Summary: AU where Cliegg is around for Luke’s arrival at the Lars homestead. Luke has a lot to learn from his grandfather.





	sand into glass

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to zephyr42 and lalalalalawhy for reading through this and making it shiny and good. Any mistakes remain my own! I hope you enjoy.

The first thing Luke Skywalker ever piloted was his grandfather Cliegg’s power chair.

Beru and Owen were horrified. If nothing else, it was the most expensive piece of non-farming equipment the family owned.

Cliegg leaned heavily on his stick and laughed at his four-year old grandson’s antics.

Luke sped fearlessly around the sunken courtyard, managing to miss the family vaporator each time. (A child of the desert knew the value of water, even from a young age.) His yellow hair flapped in the wind, and he was laughing his head off as Owen and Beru did their best to try and grab the chair. Cliegg didn’t even know it could reach those speeds.

“Luke, your grandfather needs that chair,” Owen admonished as Luke slipped through his grasp again. His brow furrowed, trying to contain his irritation.

“You know it’s not kind to take from others,” Beru added breathlessly, trying to leap in front of him, but Luke banked into a turn to avoid her.

Cliegg cackled some more, coughing a bit from the force of his mirth. Wiping tears from his eyes, he nodded at Luke, who understood the cue. He turned towards Cliegg - if it was possible for power chairs to squeal as they braked, this one would have.

“Thanks for keeping it warm for me, my boy,” Cliegg said as Luke hopped down. Cliegg settled into the seat, then patted the knee of his left leg, Luke’s regular pearch.

“Breakfast?” Cliegg asked as the boy climbed up.

Luke nodded and Cliegg began steering the chair into the shade of the kitchen, Owen and Beru followed, sweating and frustrated. Cliegg prepared the cold cereal while his son and daughter-in-law cleaned up after their unsuccessful chase.

Luke remained quiet; he didn’t always have much to say. That was fine by Cliegg.

Owen was back in the galley before long, muttering about Skywalkers and pilots. “It won’t be long before he’ll want to start pod racing,” he snarled.

“None of that,” Cliegg warned. “We have to check the vaporators on the outer rim, before the suns get any higher.”

 

“What’s a podrace?” Luke asked hours later. The suns were high and work paused until it was a safer, cooler temperature. Summers on Tatooine were brutally hot. Cliegg and Luke were in the garage, cleaning sand off their tools.

“It’s a type of race, dangerous and dirty. They do it in Mos Espa, and off planet. Mostly the Hutts set them up to make money off betting.”

“Oh,” said Luke.

That was all the boy needed to know. The Larses had no love for the Hutts, only the expected, scraping loyalty to avoid attack or further exploitation. And Luke was old enough to know about his Grandma Shmi.

Cliegg could tell by the set of the boy’s mouth that he would never wish to fill a Hutt’s coffers, even if he did show a knack for piloting and machinery.

“They can be fun to watch,” Cliegg allowed.

“But not to bet on,” Luke said, almost primly.

“Sure, kid.”

They worked again in silence. Luke had a knack for knowing exactly what tools Cliegg needed, sparing the man from leaving his perch at the workbench. It was a respite from the heat, but as soon as midday was over, they’d be out in the sands again, to coax moisture from the atmo.

 

***

 

Most nights, after dinner and a round of sonic showers, Luke and Cliegg sat outside, watching the suns set and the moons rise. All three moons were out tonight, Guermessa, Ghomrassen, and Chenini. Or the bantha, the wolf, the desert falcon, here to light them all through the night.  

“Aunt Beru said Guermessa is called the Freedom Moon,” Luke offered.  He was resting at his grandfather’s feet.

Cliegg grunted. He was sitting on an empty crate, his stick and a bo rifle within easy reach. It had been many years since he’d seen a Tusken Raider on his homestead, but it never hurt to be prepared.

“Is that what Grandma Shmi called it?” Luke asked.

“Nah, she called it the Bantha moon.” Dammit, but his leg ached tonight.

“What do you call it?” he asked.

“You’re awfully talkative tonight.”

Luke fell silent, poking quietly at the sand.

Guilt pricked at him a bit, like sand kicking up. He sighed. “I guess I always called it Guermessa. I was never a storyteller, and I certainly never worked on the Freedom Trail.”

“But you freed Grandma Shmi,” Luke said, as if this was an absolution.

Was it enough? She’d already lost her son. Shmi had loved him, and Owen, in her own way. She was a good, strong woman, it was no use wasting flowery language on Tatooine. But she had been graceful in their home, and Cliegg was forever grateful for that.

“Do you really want to listen to an old man’s memories?”

In the growing starlight, he felt Luke’s eyes sizing him up. The boy looked nothing like Shmi, and yet when Obi-Wan had brought him to Beru, it was Cliegg who insisted the boy carry Shmi’s name.

 

_"It’s too dangerous," Obi-Wan said._

_Cliegg had glared at the old Jedi. “Anakin is too afraid of the desert to ever return.”_

_When Obi-Wan argued, Cliegg skowled. “At least one of them should carry her name, and if the girl can’t, it’ll be the boy.”_

_Cliegg left the room and refused to entertain the former Jedi’s arguments._

 

Cliegg patted his hand next to him on the crate. Luke dusted off the sand and scrambled up beside him.

“Your grandmother was not Owen’s mother. My first wife was a woman named Aika. She was like water. She was calm and shy and could wear you down. I loved her like water. And she disappeared like water in the sand.

“It’s true I freed your grandmother, Luke. Much later, she chose to marry me. But in the end, the sand comes for us all.”

“Even my father? Did you ever meet him?”

“Just once, when Shmi died. He was hot and furious, but we were all grieving in our own ways. I think the heat in his soul turned the sand to glass, trapped him.”

“Like the suns in Grandma Shmi’s story.”

“I see Beru has been teaching you.”

“She keeps telling me the one about the Orphan. I _hate_ that one. I already _know_ I’m an orphan, Grandpa.”

Cliegg wrapped his arm around the boy. “Let’s go in, early rising tomorrow.”

 

***

 

The first thing Luke Skywalker ever took apart and put back together was his grandfather’s cyberleg.

He knew the story of it, or at least the broad strokes (Luke was only six). But he knew that if they’d lived on a Core World, they would have been able to reattach Cliegg’s leg.

Grandpa said it was no use wishing.

Instead, Grandpa had a terrible prosthetic leg and a stick but mostly used the hoverchair around the homestead, and out to where he needed to go. He sometimes put bacta patches on his stump to protect it from the metal, but those were expensive, used sparingly. Even if the prosthetic had been good, the sand would ruin it.

Luke waited until Grandpa was asleep, his aunt and uncle whispering quietly in their room before he snuck the leg out to the garage. There, he began taking it apart, laying the pieces lovingly on the workbench, cleaning each component.

It was so, so quiet, and it made him feel useful, good even, to do this for Grandpa Cliegg. All the time he thought of his Grandpa, missing Shmi so badly even though he never said. It had been a long time since she died, but she was missed all over the homestead. Luke knew.

He sometimes thought he dreamed of Shmi before, smooth skin, long dark hair caught in a braid. In his dreams the girl didn’t use her name, she dressed all in white. The Skywalkers (how could she not be a Skywalker when she felt so familiar?) seemed to fit together like the suns that lit their days.

Then Luke began to put the leg back together. It wasn’t exact, but Luke had been around machines his whole life. He knew how to make them work. Things fit together, like Owen and Beru, like Grandpa and Shmi, like Luke and the girl he dreamed about. The components in the cyberleg were the same, they all needed each other to work properly.

When the leg was back together, he snuck into his grandfather’s room to replace it.

 _In the morning, it worked better than it had done when it was new, and everyone skirted the issue, unwilling to alert Luke to the fact_.

 

***

 

The first person Luke ever said goodbye to was his Grandpa Cliegg.

The eight year old was as yellow-haired as ever, his blue eyes were wet with tears as they laid Cliegg to rest in the sand that he had taught them to live with.

It had been an illness like any other, and he was old, weakened by the Tuskan attack so many years ago, worn thin by time. It wasn’t the sand that came for him, but the water in his lungs.

Luke stood at the grave, even as Owen and Beru went in with their neighbors to raise a glass (or two or more). He tried to feel as his father had felt when Shmi died, hot and furious, but Luke knew better. Sickness happened. Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru had done their best to get the medicine Cliegg needed, but... Tatooine life was hard.

Luke felt cold. Owen was kind enough, Beru was warmer, but Cliegg had been a lifeline. If not willing to talk about Shmi, at least ready to do so. Luke knelt in the sand, trailed his fingers through the grains. It held the heat from the day still. He wouldn’t be allowed outside this late much longer, surely someone would come looking for him.

He leaned against the gravestone, reached out to touch the stone that marked Shmi’s place. The three moons rose behind him.

Eventually, Beru came out, bleary-eyed from her own grief. Despite her small size, she managed to lift Luke off the ground and carry him inside. He was stiff from the desert cold.

“I didn’t want Grandpa to be alone,” he said, as Beru forced a glass of water on him and began combing the sand out of his hair.

“He’s not alone,” Beru soothed. “He’s with us always, just like Shmi is.”

“And my parents?”

Beru hesitated, then said, “Yes, of course. Finish your water, please.”

“And the girl I dream about?”

She tugged a little too sharply on his hair at that.

“Ow! Auntie!”

“Sorry, Luke. What girl?” Beru began unwrapping his tunic, quickly.

“I don’t know. Just a girl, I guess. She looks like Grandma Shmi, but my age. Could it be her? Visiting me?” Luke set the glass down and shrugged into his sleep shirt.

“Could be,” Beru said, taking even breaths. “Or maybe it’s one of the characters from my stories.”

Luke rolled his eyes.

She shook her head and plumped his pillow for him. “Bed, young man. Maybe you’ll dream of your Grandpa tonight.”

“Yes, Auntie.”

He crawled into his bed, pulling the loose sheet up to his chin. Beru smoothed it down, kissed his sand-free hair.

“Sleep well, Luke, dream well.”

“You too. Say goodnight to Uncle for me.”

“I will,” she said, flicking off the light and closing the door.

Beru returned to the mourners in the common spaces. The grief was quiet for Luke’s benefit, but everyone would stay until dawn to grieve, to drink water and spirits, to talk about Cliegg. When Luke felt she wouldn’t be back, he crept out of his bed to the window to gaze once again at the three moons.

Guermessa, Ghomrassen, and Chenini, the bantha, the wolf, the desert falcon. There were so many stories about the moons, their gifts, their flaws. Aunt Beru knew them all.

Vaguely he wondered what would happen to Cliegg’s chair, stick, leg. Would they be sold? Kept in case they were needed again? They had been too valuable to bury today. Luke traced a bit of sand that had found its way to his windowsill, colorless in the moonlight.

Looking up at Guermessa again, he wondered if Cliegg was free, if he was with Luke’s parents or Aika. If Shmi would find him in that great beyond, and if she looked like she did in Luke’s dreams.

“I know your secrets, Grandpa,” he whispered to the moons.

Cliegg, who had loved his family so fiercely, who blew hot to hide his glass heart. How easily it had shattered when he had lost Aika and Shmi. Cliegg who had let his grandson ride around on his lap like it was a small throne. Who listened to his son’s advice in the day, to all of Beru’s stories at night.

Rubbing his brow, Luke left the window and crawled back into bed. The moonlight shone through the window. As he curled up into a comfortable position, hugging a stuffed bantha that he ordinarily claimed he was too old for, Luke wondered when the desert would turn his own heart to glass.


End file.
